Download Sample Images

Click the link below to download the sample images and follow along with this tutorial.

Batch Resize an Entire Folder of Images in Only 2 Minutes

Batch resizing is ideal for when you need to send a client several images for review but full-size files aren’t necessary. We’ll walk you through how to create a custom Photoshop Action which will resize an image to a predetermined width, then we’ll apply that action to an entire folder of images with just a few clicks.

Action Packed

Creating a Photoshop Action is the key to making this process fast and efficient. We’ll start by bringing in a single photo into Photoshop that we’ll use as a guide for resizing as well as for recording our Action.

Once you’ve opened the image, go to the Window tab and click on Actions. The Actions dialog will appear. Within the Actions window, click on the folder icon at the bottom. This will allow you to create a folder that can hold any and all resizing actions that you decide to make. To the right of the Folder icon is the New Action icon. Click on it and we’ll start creating our first resize Action. A New Action dialog will pop up. Since the action we’re making is for resizing images to 800 pixels wide, we named it 800px for easy reference. Once you’ve entered the name, hit the Record button.

Photoshop will now start recording any actions that you take within the program. This includes any changes you make to the image, any layers you create, and even processes such as saving.

Resizing

Now that Photoshop is watching, you can resize the image to your desired dimensions. Go to the Image tab and down to Image Size. Be sure to keep the Width and Height lock to prevent any image distortion or changes to the aspect ratio. Change the width to 800 pixels and click Okay.

You’ll notice that the size of your image will change and that change will be recorded within the Actions dialog. The last step of our Action will be saving the image out as a JPEG.

Go to File and then to Save As. Where you save this image won’t matter, we’re simply doing this to record the process of saving – we won’t actually need the image that we’re saving. Save the image to a folder of your choosing – we recommend using a quality of around 10 which we find to be a reasonable balance between file size and image quality. Once the image is saved, go ahead and hit the Stop button at the bottom of the Action Dialog.

All About That Batch

Now the easy part! Our Action is all set to go and we can apply it to any number of images – or even entire folders – simultaneously. To do this, go to File, then to Automate, and then to Batch. Using this dialog, you can batch process a custom Photoshop Action to any number of photos.

The first two drop-down boxes let you locate and select the Action you wish to use. We directed the first to our Resize set and the second to our 800px Action. Since, in this example, we want to resize all of the images in a folder, we changed the Source to folder and selected the Resize folder that contains our sample images. We then set the destination to a new folder named 800px that we created within our Resize folder.

The last step is to make sure that Suppress File Open Option Dialogs, Suppress Color Profile Warnings, and Override Action “Save As” Commands are all checked. This will prevent any unnecessary windows from popping up during the saving process.

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